# Patient messages (/docs/en/guides/patient-messages)



You write a patient email as a draft in the patient's record, and nothing leaves until you send it. Sent emails and their delivery status stay on the patient's **Emails** page.

Sending needs the **Send email, forms, and requests** permission, which every default role has. Correcting an email address needs permission to edit patient files.

## Write an email [#write]

1. Open the patient and choose **New → Email**, or open **Emails** and start one there.
2. Enter a **Subject** and write the message. To start from a published email template, choose **Use a template**.
3. Check any values filled in for this patient, such as their name.
4. Wait for the status to read **Draft · saved**. The draft saves as you type.

Choose **Discard draft** to delete a draft you no longer want. A discarded draft was never sent.

## Send the email [#send]

Choose **Send…**. The **Send this email** dialog shows **What the patient sees**, with the recipient under **To** and the sender under **From**. Read it, then choose **Send now**.

<Callout type="warn">
  **Send now** emails the patient and cannot be taken back once the email has left. Salisan holds it for 10 seconds, and **Undo** in the confirmation turns it back into a draft. After that it is too late to undo. An email the Agent sends waits 30 seconds after you confirm it.
</Callout>

Email is not encrypted in transit, and the send dialog says so. A copy of what you send is kept in the patient's record, so do not put anything in an email that the patient should only see through a secure channel.

Sending is blocked in these cases:

* The patient has no email address. Choose &#x2A;*Add email address…**, or enter it in the dialog and choose **Save address**. It is saved to the patient file.
* The patient has opted out of email. Choose &#x2A;*Open patient file…**. Change the preference only if the patient asks to receive email again.
* A template value has nothing for this patient. The dialog lists the missing values; complete them in the draft.
* Your latest changes have not saved yet. Wait a moment and try again.

## Check delivery [#delivery]

Open the email from **Emails** and look at **Delivery**. The status tells you how far it got:

| Status             | Meaning                                                        |
| ------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Sending**        | On its way.                                                    |
| **Sent**           | Handed over, waiting for the patient's mail server to confirm. |
| **Delivered**      | The patient's mail server accepted it.                         |
| **Not delivered**  | It failed. The reason is shown.                                |
| **Marked as spam** | The patient reported it as spam.                               |
| **Unconfirmed**    | Salisan lost track after sending.                              |
| **Cancelled**      | You undid it before it left.                                   |

**Delivered** does not mean the patient read it. Salisan does not track whether emails are opened. Choose **Delivery details** for the individual events. The email's page does not show the message itself; an encrypted copy is kept in the patient's record.

The **Emails** page under **Organization** lists emails to all patients, with **Search by patient**. A **Didn't arrive** section at the top collects the ones that failed. Emails Salisan sends by itself are marked **Automatic**.

## Fix an email that failed [#fix]

Read the reason under the status, then use the action offered:

* **Fix address** corrects a wrong address, saves it to the patient file and sends the email again. Future emails use the new address.
* **Send again** retries a temporary failure, such as a full mailbox.
* **Write a new email** is offered when the content was refused, for example because of an image. Images must be uploaded to the email and 1 MB or smaller.

**Unconfirmed** needs care. The email may already have been sent, so ask the patient before you choose **Send again anyway**, or they may receive it twice.

If the patient marked an email as spam, it is not sent again, and other emails to them go out as usual. For automatic emails that fail, such as the daily check-in email, Salisan creates a task titled "Email to … wasn't delivered" so someone follows up.

## Related [#related]

* [Patient forms and requests](/docs/en/guides/patient-forms)
* [Appointments](/docs/en/guides/appointments#patient-email)
* [Templates](/docs/en/guides/templates)
* [A patient didn't get my email](/docs/en/troubleshooting/patient-email-not-received)